| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: away, and he stayed away.
"I shall find him!" said the old man; but he never found him. The floor was
too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice, and there he lay as
in an open tomb.
That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed, and
several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy was obliged
to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the old house, and there
the snow had been blown into all the carved work and inscriptions; it lay
quite up over the steps, just as if there was no one at home--nor was there
any one at home--the old man was dead!
In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was borne into
Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: talk to your father . . . !"
"Why, you should talk to him yourself."
"Well, well, I did put in my word, but he said just what you do:
'Every man to his own job.' Do you suppose in the next world
they'll consider what job you have been put to? God's judgment is
just."
"Of course no one will consider," said Anisim, and he heaved a
sigh. "There is no God, anyway, you know, mamma, so what
considering can there be?"
Varvara looked at him with surprise, burst out laughing, and
clasped her hands. Perhaps because she was so genuinely surprised
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: erasures and corrections, and my father's handwriting was
otherwise extremely legible. When I got to the end he nodded and
I flew out of doors thinking myself lucky to have escaped reproof
for that piece of impulsive audacity. I have tried to discover
since the reason of this mildness, and I imagine that all unknown
to myself I had earned, in my father's mind, the right to some
latitude in my relations with his writing-table. It was only a
month before, or perhaps it was only a week before, that I had
read to him aloud from beginning to end, and to his perfect
satisfaction, as he lay on his bed, not being very well at the
time, the proofs of his translation of Victor Hugo's "Toilers of
Some Reminiscences |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from
east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon
of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but
this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the
moral and physical character of the first generation of
Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The
eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet.
"The world ends there," say they; "beyond there is nothing but a
shoreless sea." It is unmitigated East where they live.
We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and
literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as
Walking |
